Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-04-16
The Scenery in the Black Hills.

seen any adequate mention Of their
scenery. Their mineral, timber and
agricultural resources, and the enter
prise ard imaginative resources Of the
people in advertising the country are
not more remarkable than the scenery
Of this strange geological upheaval and
] believe the time is coming, when rail
roads penetrate the Hills and the ire
presslble G. P. A. gets onto their beau
ties, that they will be thronged With
sightseers. Snch will find more than the
ordinary mountain and rayiDe scenery
of which there is no lack in this land.
These wild and romantic features have
charms all their own. as will appear.
The granite in which Harney's ca
and the core Of the up-turn is composed
of peculiar constitution; coarse, hard
and friable. 1t exists in immense bodies
of large CRYSTALS, whence geologist
christened it "Cyclopean granite" 1t
disintegrates freely and "weathers" in
fantastic shapes. The singular sharp
cliffs around Harney's peak, called vari
Ously "The Sawtooth" and "The fingers"
and the eccentric granite dykes scatter
ed through the central Hills are i~llustra-
tions Of this rugged formation.
MATo TEPEE
Still more singular and impressive
formations are to be found in the vol
canic rocks Of the northern Hills. Bear
Butte, an isolated boulder rising alb.
ruptly from the prairie near TT. Meade,
and Bear Lodge (Mato Tepee, Of the In
dians,) are this ilk. The latter is said
by biologists to be without a precendent
in b~asaltic crystallization. 1t is a
natural obelisk rising sheer 200 feet
above the banks of the Belle Fourche;
is 500 feet in diameter at the base, taper
ing in a graceful vonvex to a diameter
of a75 feet at the top. 1t is composed of
thousands Of prisms that extend un-
broken from base to summit. This con-
tinuity Of the crystals is the remarkable
feature of the mass, the tendency Of the
trappe rock being to fracture transverse
ly in crystallizing and weather away to
the appearance of ~stairs-whence the
name, "trappe," a stair, as in Giants
Causeway, Ireland. Prof. Newton says
"Bear Lodge, in its shape and structure,
appears not to nave been repeated else
where bv nature, but stands alone,
unique and mysterious" 1t occupies
the place Of a chimney to some sub
terranean furnace, which overlooked
with molten rock, and cooling, crystal
Lied downward. The surrounding walls
Of the chimney eroded and left this
mighty monumen to the work OF
crystallization, that power scarcely less
mysterious thar the force oflife itself. No
One has ever set foot on this monument
and l wonder that no foolhardy Yankee
has ever repeated achievement Of the
British sailors who scaled Pompey's
Pillar, Egypt, and had a grand spree
The party that first holds Fourth of July
celebration on the top Of Bear Lodge
will be immortallized in local history
One of these days some one will fence
IT IN. construct a stairway to the top and
get rich on the gate money.
THE HOT SPRINGS,
in Fall River county, where Represent.
alive and Doctor Stewart and associates
ara building up a sanitarium, is a greater
curiosity than healer-granting all that
it's Owner claim for it in the latter re-
spect. Here Fall River jumps out OF
the ground like aJack-in-the-box, "hot''
ut having been confined too long. Aside
from the spontaniety Of this sudden
and bad smelling apparition, and the
romantic scenery up and Down the
valley to the falls Of the river, there are
phenomena to attract the naturalist and
novelty hunter. The warm waters
generate vegetable life rapidly, and the
springs being differently i%mpregnated
chemically las Maniton. COLI, each
seems to have become the habitat of a
different variety of algae.
II MOUNTAIN PARKS.
But the feature hat shall some day be
more admired than all sports of nature
is the beautiful mountain parks. These
are smooth, grassy, iowery, t~reeless
stretches Of acres or miles in area hedg-
ed in or broken up by lodges, crags and
dykes all covered with pines, or termi-
mating abruptly in gloomy gorges and
deep canyons, with water features inter-
spersed ito the queens taste" The
constrasts between the sublime and the
beautiful heightened the effect of each
and work on the aesthetic sense wonder
fully-ift the spectator has any aesthetic
sense and isn't too hungry, which is
quite apt to be the case under present
facilities for travel. When the project
ed narrow gauge railroad from Rapid
City to Custer is completed-mind, l
say when!-it will be one Of the most
famous scenic routes in the country. In
a word, the Black Hills are a gigantic
curisosity hop and dime museum, where
the g~eologist, sight-seer, health-seeker,
weaIth-Seekpr landscapa artist and